Van Praag was the firm's liaison to the press, and he had word of a coming story, a New York Times piece on the firm's role in the mortgage disaster-the same disaster that would, by the following September, precipitate the global financial crisis that erupted ten years ago this week.
The president of Goldman at the time, Gary Cohn, would, of course, go on to work for the man who defeated Clinton, Donald Trump, who seemed to share the public's anger at Wall Street's impunity until, as the President, he delivered Wall Street the great present of tax cuts that, in the first quarter of this year alone, made America's five biggest banks $2.5 billion richer, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.
Perhaps the most telling thing that the e-mail foretold was how finance would, in the coming years, use giving to protect its right to keep taking.
Ideally, a stiff shot about Goldman's profiteering would have been served with a chaser about its giving.
Two days later, Goldman issued a press release about its new charitable fund-and Anderson, of the Times, published a second piece, this one focussed on how GS Gives was part of a Goldman heritage that "Discouraged ostentation and expected a level of philanthropy." "We know we make a lot of money," Anderson quoted Blankfein as saying, "And we know that we live in this world and we have a responsibility to give something back." It was a small coup, and part of the ongoing dodge: here Goldman could present its giving as noblesse oblige, part of its sense of duty-when on the inside, van Praag had all but acknowledged that giving was a smokescreen.
Still another, John F. W. Rogers, is the chairman of GS Gives and the Goldman Sachs Foundation.
Wells Fargo agreed last month to pay $2.09 billion for its own role in selling toxic mortgage-backed securities and contributing to the financial crisis-which came two years after it was ordered to pay a hundred and eighty-five million dollars for engaging in what the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau described as "The widespread illegal practice of secretly opening unauthorized deposit and credit card accounts." However, Wells Fargo also says it donated $286.5 million to more than 14,500 nonprofits in 2017.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/after-the-financial-crisis-wall-street-turned-to-charityand-avoided-justice
The president of Goldman at the time, Gary Cohn, would, of course, go on to work for the man who defeated Clinton, Donald Trump, who seemed to share the public's anger at Wall Street's impunity until, as the President, he delivered Wall Street the great present of tax cuts that, in the first quarter of this year alone, made America's five biggest banks $2.5 billion richer, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.
Perhaps the most telling thing that the e-mail foretold was how finance would, in the coming years, use giving to protect its right to keep taking.
Ideally, a stiff shot about Goldman's profiteering would have been served with a chaser about its giving.
Two days later, Goldman issued a press release about its new charitable fund-and Anderson, of the Times, published a second piece, this one focussed on how GS Gives was part of a Goldman heritage that "Discouraged ostentation and expected a level of philanthropy." "We know we make a lot of money," Anderson quoted Blankfein as saying, "And we know that we live in this world and we have a responsibility to give something back." It was a small coup, and part of the ongoing dodge: here Goldman could present its giving as noblesse oblige, part of its sense of duty-when on the inside, van Praag had all but acknowledged that giving was a smokescreen.
Still another, John F. W. Rogers, is the chairman of GS Gives and the Goldman Sachs Foundation.
Wells Fargo agreed last month to pay $2.09 billion for its own role in selling toxic mortgage-backed securities and contributing to the financial crisis-which came two years after it was ordered to pay a hundred and eighty-five million dollars for engaging in what the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau described as "The widespread illegal practice of secretly opening unauthorized deposit and credit card accounts." However, Wells Fargo also says it donated $286.5 million to more than 14,500 nonprofits in 2017.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/after-the-financial-crisis-wall-street-turned-to-charityand-avoided-justice
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